Oscar, that's you they're all talking about / Hollywood mounts new approach to buzz with Q&A celebrity screenings

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2003-01-26 04:00:00 PDT Los Angeles -- Hollywood's newest status symbol is the old-fashioned canvas director's chair. It's the furniture of choice at celebrity Q&A screenings, which have become the promotional tool du jour for studios eager to garner Oscar consideration for their films.

Earlier this month, Arianna Huffington occupied one such chair after a screening of "Antwone Fisher" at a theater on the 20th Century Fox lot. Facing her was Antwone Fisher himself. Audience members who'd been invited to the event by the Creative Coalition, a political advocacy group, listened as Fisher shared the back story about his autobiographical screenplay. The soft- spoken Fisher charmed listeners as he recounted his journey from abused orphan to Navy man to studio security guard, to screenplay writer and, finally, to the guy who got a phone call from Denzel Washington about making the movie about his life.

Huffington interlaced queries about the film with issue-oriented comments about government policy toward foster care.

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A few minutes later at a nearby Beverly Hills hotel, coalition president Billy Baldwin greeted audience members as they arrived for a cozy eight-to-a- table awards dinner. "We do events like this if there's some sort of angle that relates to the policy area in which we advocate," the actor-activist said.

"The fit tonight is that Antwone Fisher in his book ("Finding Fish") attributed the creative outlets in his life as a safe haven that helped him from going under. That's an important message to get across."

"It's kind of awkward because I am kind of a loner, but I learned when I became a screenwriter that you can't just depend on your agent to get you work.

You have to hustle. I'm a screenwriter, but it's another part of it, selling the movie. You have to get out in front of people."

And how. With award season in full bloom, Hollywood is awash with filmmakers dutifully mixing and mingling on behalf of their movies. "Just like presidential candidates, you have to campaign now," one studio executive says. "You can't just sit there and hope that someone's going to vote for you."

Some stars pitch in even when they're not directly involved in a film with celebrity-by-association events. Matt Damon invited industry friends to a party promoting "Narc" -- he'd befriended the film's star, Ray Liotta. Salma Hayak threw a party celebrating "Y Tu Mama Tambien." Reese Witherspoon hosted a shindig in honor of "Monsoon Wedding."

The aim of all this schmoozing is to create Oscar buzz, but there's one catch: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences states that screenings held specifically for academy members "should not be accompanied by receptions,

buffets or other refreshments, nor should such screenings feature the live participation of the film's artists before or after the screening."

Academy Executive Administrator Ric Robertson explains: "There are a lot more Q&A screenings this year, and it's possible that it's in response to our rules, which do not permit them to target those kind of Q&A screenings to our members."

Which means that people belonging to filmmaking craft guilds have never been so popular. Screening invitations studiously avoid any mention of the academy but typically target members of many other filmmaking organizations.

"When you invite all the guilds, you are going to hit some academy members as well," Robertson says. "We can't write rules that prohibit other organizations from doing certain things, so there's always going to be a way around that."

Referring to another recent Oscar rule that forbids receptions designed to promote a film for Oscar consideration, Robertson adds, "I don't think any of our members are swayed because they get a nice shrimp cocktail before a screening or something, but the rules send a message, encouraging our members to evaluate what's on the screen. We want to keep everyone focused on that."

Of course, stars and studios have always hankered for Academy Awards, but it used to be so simple. In 1929, Mary Pickford lobbied for an Oscar by inviting all five academy members to her house for dinner (she won). Ronni Chasen, a specialist in Academy Award campaigns who helped orchestrate last year's successful Oscar effort for "Godsford Park" screenplay writer Julian Fellowes, says, "I remember doing the campaign for 'Driving Miss Daisy' in 1989. All we did was, they ran ads, screened the movie, and that was that."

That all began to change in the early '90s, when studios began mailing videotapes of their films to academy members. To lure voters away from their TV sets and into a big-screen theatrical experience, DreamWorks and Universal studios organized a raft of talent-hosted screenings for "Gladiator," which went on to win the best-picture Oscar. The next year, everyone else followed suit.

MORE THAN STARGAZING

"Stars may attract audiences, but the screenings are intended to be about more than just ogling celebrities," says one Oscar strategist. "The Q&As really do shed a lot of light on what you've seen. When you get the actresses in 'The Hours' talking about developing their characters, it's quite fascinating, like the added value you get with a DVD. It's not just, 'Oh, here's this star onstage.' "

Filmmakers who choose to skip the campaign trail may pay the price come Oscar night. "For people who haven't been participants in the past, like Sean Penn, it's proven to be detrimental," one publicist says. "To not show up, and not support your movie the way it has to be supported these days is a problem."

Case in point: Last year, "A Beautiful Mind" director Ron Howard made himself available for scads of industry events and won the best director Oscar.

Insiders say that film's star, Russell Crowe, who already had one Oscar, took a more relaxed approach -- and did not win.

but those working in the trenches reach a saturation point amid the constant round of A-list events. One campaign publicist noted, somewhat wearily, "At 11 o'clock at night, you look around at the end of the Q&A and you see everyone from all the other PR companies staying with their star clients, and everyone's exhausted. I've never seen so many tired people."

A SHORT RESPITE

Celebrity handlers, studio executives and filmmakers will enjoy brief respite from the glad-handing beginning Wednesday, when Oscar ballots are due. Says Chasen, "You can't do much between the 29th and the 11th, so maybe you can take a day off."

Once the Academy Award nominations are announced Feb. 11, it all starts up again.